National Circuit Championships/Classic Series Rd 6, 19 Jun 2022

After a very disappointing DNF in the last round of the Classic Series, I was hoping for a decent result for this one, especially as the equivalent event last year was one of my worst performances! With rubbish legs in last week’s Tour of Cambridgeshire TT, that was probably more hope than expectation! A decent performance in the mid-week club 10 did give me some confidence though. Pre-race research suggested the course (which is new) was mostly rolling but with a steep bit at the end of each lap (3x 9.5mile laps for the race). I decided to put a wider cassette on my disc wheel for this one.

I arrived at the course in plenty of time to recce the course in the car - key features were a first descent with incredibly bumpy tarmac, then a nice rolling course until a left turn which was in a small village with cars parked all down one side. I actually missed the left turn which was very narrow and had to turn around.. might be delays here I thought…The rest of the course was fine and the final climb did end quite steeply and so was likely to be a small ring effort. I rode back out to the course doing my warmup on the way and had a go at the climb - definitely small ring.

Off the start and wow that tarmac is bumpy! Once that was over I was able to start pushing hard up the long drag towards the far part of the course, overtaking a few people along the way. The two people in front of me were both DNS so I only had a 3 minute man to chase! After the first long climb there was a chicane into a fast descent - well it would have been fast but I found myself behind a car that was stuck behind a tractor, and it took ages before the car was able to pass so that I could pass the tractor as well. I got some speed back up along this section, passing another tractor which thankfully didn’t hold me up, and then it was into the dread village. Sure enough I got delayed by a car stopped in the road at the turn, and had to squeeze past on the inside, getting sworn at by the occupants for my trouble.

The rest of the lap went fine and I was glad of my little ring on the final climb to keep my legs spinning and the power high but under control. Then it was just a case of doing the same thing two more times to finish the race - I was on target power and legs felt good, just frustrated by the delays which had cost me so much time on the first lap. I will see how much better I can do on the other two laps I thought… At least no tractors on lap 2, so actually got to enjoy the fast descent, but the delay at the dread village was even worse, having to unclip this time. Unbelievably frustrating, apologies to the marshals who would have heard me swearing! I managed to get through the rest of the lap but I have to admit that motivation was flagging at this point - with so many delays any chance of a good time were being taken away. I tried to remember that others may be being held up as well. This lap was a bit down on power and mostly for head reasons rather than legs.

One lap to go and time to give everything I had left, pushing hard up the drag, doing my fastest descent on the fast bit and keeping pushing out to dread village. And then, 3 out of 3, had to unclip again almost identical situation as lap 2 - a car stopped in the road at the entrance to the narrow junction. Swearing again (sorry!), and finally I could ride the rest of the route as fast as my legs would carry me - catching my 3 minute man at this point - a little twinge of cramp but was able to give a maximal effort up the final hill and to the finish.

Back at HQ, there was some talk about the course delays but no-one seemed to have had it as bad as me (violins out!) - in fact the person ahead of me in the results had a 2 minute gap and I probably didn’t lose that much so may not have cost me a place - in the end I was 15th and 7th vet in 1:08:02. It was a small but super strong field, and I managed to beat a few people that were predicted to beat me so in the end I was reasonably happy. That’s the end of the Classic Series which was mixed for me:

Round 1 - New Forest, beautiful rolling course and great result, one of my favourite TTs ever
Round 2 - Peak District, fantastic ‘multiple hill climb’ course, gave it everything I had, disappointing result
Round 3 - Worcestershire Little Mountain TT, gutting DNF due to puncture
Round 6 - This one (the other two rounds were Lake District and Scotland so didn’t do them)

Tim Phillips